There are a number of communications protocols relating to bus communications, particularly for circuit-board level inter-chip communications. In some of these bus architectures, there is a single common data line and the protocol manages control and access to the data line. One popular example is the Inter Integrated Circuit (I2C) bus communication protocol. I2C-bus (hereinafter I2C) is described in “I2C-bus specification and user manual”, UM10204, Rev. 6, Apr. 4, 2014, NXP Semiconductors N.V. A recently-developed protocol from the Mobile Industry Processor Interface Alliance (MIPI® Alliance) is the SoundWire™ protocol. SoundWire™ is intended for use with small cost-sensitive audio peripherals.
One of the drawbacks of the SoundWire™ specification is that it uses a single bi-directional channel for data transfer between devices. The bi-directional channel inherently limits the speed of the communications due to the fact that each bit time period must allow for worst case round trip transmission delay. For example, each minimum bit time must include transmitter output drive delay, channel delay, receiver input delay, and other logic delays required for a round trip. In practical implementations of SoundWire™, 20 MHz may be the fastest achievable speed.
Similar reference numerals may have been used in different figures to denote similar components.